Le Duc d'Albe

Donizetti was unable to finish 'Le Duc d'Albe' before his death. Opera Vlaanderen asked the musicologists of the publishers Ricordi and the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli to reconstruct the work and supplement it. The result became a fascinating shift from a typical 19th-century idiom to a contemporary musical language. Although the main story of 'Le Duc d'Albe' takes place during the 16th-century Spanish occupation of the Low Countries, the theme of 'Le Duc d'Albe' is the absurdity of all armed conflict.